


Metanoia (n.)

by peterpan_in_neverland



Series: have you ever felt things beyond the human language? [7]
Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: 5+1, 5+1 Things, F/M, Light Angst, Pining, Post canon, but i really had fun writing this, i dont know how real life works, starting off my 2021 works with a goddamn bang, wowee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28930230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterpan_in_neverland/pseuds/peterpan_in_neverland
Summary: “A frozen yogurt loyalty card?” Devi asks, raising her eyebrows and looking at him incredulously. He is smirking, and she snorts. “Seriously? A frozen yogurt loyalty card? You eat frozen yogurt often enough to warrant having a frozen yogurt loyalty card?”“Don’t you?” he asks plainly.--OR; five times Ben and Devi accidentally go on a date, and one time they go on purpose
Relationships: Ben Gross/Devi Vishwakumar, background Paxton Hall-Yoshida/Eleanor Wong
Series: have you ever felt things beyond the human language? [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778254
Comments: 9
Kudos: 90





	Metanoia (n.)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magnetichearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetichearts/gifts).



> hi, i'm back and i'm beginning 2021 with a gift for my friend
> 
> bhargavi, I love you so much. thank you for everything you have done for me these past, what, seven months? anywho, I'm proud of you, and I love you very much.
> 
> also shoutout to Leila (flashlightinacave) and cori (cori_the_bloody) for helping me with planning and figuring out the ““dates”” because I am literally useless in that aspect of life and writing. I love you both very much <3
> 
> actual notes now:
> 
> 1) I really don't remember about 2/6 of these parts. i genuinely could not tell you, I wrote this in such a blur  
> 2) this isn't that good, but I enjoyed writing it anyway and I am glad to be sharing it  
> 3) I don't know how prom dress shopping or wedding dress shopping works, as I have not done either  
> 4) this is my LONGEST NHIE FIC TO DATE and that is a goddamn miracle  
> 5) this is, as usual, not proofread because I am impatient. i literally finished it like fifteen minutes ago
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

_ i. _

“Did you know that the moon has earthquakes?” Devi asks, copying it into her astronomy notes. Astronomy is an easy A, and she is almost positive that she has everything memorized already, but she is copying it down nonetheless.

“So, moonquakes, then?” Ben says, not bothering to look up from his notebook. He is scrawling down APUSH notes from the presentation Shapiro shared, and Devi rolls her eyes at him. It may be an AP class, but Shapiro is  _ not  _ an AP teacher, as much as he likes to pretend to be. “What causes it? It can’t be tectonic plates.”

“You're so mean to the moon about her lack of tectonic plates,” Devi says, her voice light and teasing, “yknow, Earth is the only planet confirmed to have tectonic plates, yet you’re judging the moon.” 

“I'm not judging the moon, just trying to figure out how a satellite without tectonic plates has earth— moonquakes, technically,” he says, then snorts, “you’re so defensive over the moon.”

“All women are defensive over the moon,” Devi says, and shrugs, “she’s our sister in arms.”

“Sister in— y’know what, I actually don’t want to know,” he says, and closes his notebook with a snap. “I finished APUSH before you, even though you tried to distract me with some mildly fascinating moon talk.”

“I finished APUSH already, loser,” Devi says, competitiveness getting the better of her, “I’ve been doing astronomy for the past ten minutes.”

“Is that where the moonquakes tidbit came from?” he asks, scooting down his bed until he is sitting on the very end of it, his feet dangling over the edge.

“Remove your feet from my personal space, or lose them,” she warns, and he makes a  _ hmph  _ noise, and drops down to sit next to her on the floor. “And if you tamper with my notes, you die. Slowly.” 

“Frightening,” he says, peeking over her shoulder to look at her laptop.

“Spying and espionage is also punishable by a slow death,” she warns, closing her laptop screen halfway and turning to glare at him, “one chance to explain yourself before I kill you.”

“I’m bored,” he says, shrugging and looking at her with his head tilted. He has his hands resting over his knee, fingers threaded together, and looking at them makes unbidden memories of those hands in her hair rise to the front of her mind.

“Read a book,” she says, then winces, “but you’ll have to find someone else to teach you how to read, I’m busy.”

“What’re you even doing?” he asks, and tries to peek at her laptop again. She shifts, moving from his line of sight, and he frowns. “It’s treason, isn’t it?” 

“As if I’d commit a crime that boring,” she says, and scoffs, “if I’d do anything, it’d be arson.” 

_ “Please  _ tell me I got that on tape somehow,” he says, and pats his pockets like he has hidden a recorder in one of them, “dammit, I could’ve sworn it was here somewhere.” 

Despite herself, she laughs, and lets her laptop tilt closed. “Let’s go do something.”

“Like arson?” 

“No,” she says, then wrinkles her brow, “I mean, not  _ now,  _ and certainly not a hard no, but I was more thinking, like… getting out of your house.” 

“You say that like this  _ isn’t  _ the nicest house you’ve ever been in.”

“My house is nicer,” Devi says, jokingly, and looks at Ben with a little smirk. The fight in his eyes is gone, and she knows what he is thinking about because she knows him: her house is nicer because her family is there, with her, and his family is never with him. She stands up, and holds a hand out to him, and when he takes it, she ignores the little sparks that tingle along the grooves in her skin like water carving out a canyon. “It’s the square footage, much more desirable.”

“What?” he asks, blinking back to himself, disoriented. 

“My house,” she says, and punches his shoulder, trying to force any tenderness out of this moment, “it has a more reasonable square footage for an average American family. Purely speaking, my house would look better under current market conditions.” 

He scoffs, and rolls his eyes. “You forget that there are always billionaires looking for new property to beef up their weird sleek looking house repertoire in California.” 

“You live in a rich people house, but not a  _ billionaire  _ people house,” she tells him, slipping her laptop into her backpack and zipping it up. “You need like, two more pools and a tennis court for that.”

“I have a tennis court.” 

She groans, and takes his hand, pulling him out of his room. “God, I hate you.” 

“Where are we going?” he asks, and some whimsical part of her imagination convinces her that Ben stalls in dropping her hand. 

Sometimes, when Ben touches her, he gives her a feeling that he is planning to linger. His fingers curl in when they high five, he slows down when their shoulders brush, he lets casual touch extend to something intimate, and she wonders when they will begin to cross lines. 

(One day— it lingers in her mind, she sits awake in it when she tries to fall asleep and when he walks into a room, it overwhelms her because it is  _ him him him—  _ he had grabbed her shoulder to get her to turn around, and something in his eyes said he did not want to let go, and she felt the path his fingertips burn into her skin as they skated down the length of her arm)

“We’re going to get food,” Devi says, grabbing his car keys— he has a Benz, and he always keeps the keys in an ugly white bowl by the front door, stupid rich douchebag— and dropping them into his outstretched hand, “and maybe, like, commit arson.” 

Ben snorts, grabbing a jacket from a peg on the wall, and letting her push him out of the door. “Why arson?”

“It’s the rush, Gross, you wouldn’t understand.” 

Ben stops, and tugs her around to face him when he does. “Have you committed arson, Devi?” he asks, a scrunched up look on his face that makes her heart spin like a whirlpool. For a moment, she thinks about reaching up to pat his cheek— or kiss him there— but the moment passes when he says, “Devi?” again.

“You’re a narc,” she says, snapping herself away from the unparsed emotions, “Nalini says so herself. Why would I tell you?” 

“Because I’m your friend.” 

“Don’t go throwin’ around the f-word so casually, Benjamin,” Devi says, pulling open the passenger door of his car and tossing her backpack in the backseat, and buckling her seatbelt. 

“What f-word? Faveolate?”

“What even is that?” she asks, looking at him crooked. He is turning the keys in the ignition in his car and, fuck, his hands are pretty. They are perfect for him, strong looking and soft and she knows that he plays piano, can picture him playing it, and then his hands are in her hair and—

“It’s the word for something that's honeycombed, like beehives and stuff,” Ben says, yanking her out of her daydreams and backing out of the driveway with a hand on her headrest. “I’m not surprised you don’t know it, considering it’s more than two syllables.” 

She snorts. “It’s a miracle that  _ you  _ know it— I didn’t even know you could read.”

“I think you would know, considering I beat you in the reading competition in sixth grade.”

“You only beat me because you cheated,” she says, resisting the urge to lean over and punch him while he drives, “audio books absolutely should not have counted and your threat to sue the school if they excluded them was bullshit.”

“The school ruled in my favour, though, so it isn’t cheating.”

“Do I need to repeat my earlier statement regarding the  _ lawsuit?”  _ she asks, and he laughs, shaking his head like he cannot believe she exists, right here, in his car, simply to poke fun at him.

“If we did a reading competition now, I would totally wreck you again. Audio books or not,” he promises, and they lapse into an easy, oars cutting the water with ease type of silence. Devi fiddles with the dials on his radio, changing the stations and knowing that he will leave them, finishing three levels of Where’s My Water and texting a meme to Eleanor.

“Where are we going again?” Ben asks, hesitating at the turn that would take them back to her house and end the moments that she has alone with him.

“Anywhere with hamburgers,” she says, and sees a half smile tilt up his lips, “but preferably greasy ones that are super bad for you. If you take me to some fancy ass restaurant that makes deconstructed foam food, I’ll kill you.”

“Foam food?” he asks, wrinkling his nose. “Like, memory foam?”

“No, like bubbles and shit.”

“I don’t think that’s a real thing, David.”

“Once we get to the restaurant, I am showing you the YouTube video advertising the foam food,” Devi says, “because it is disgusting, and you deserve the fate of seeing the disgusting foam food video.”

“Y’know, it makes sense that you’ve only had two friends your entire life,” Ben says, “you’re kind of mean.”

“Only to you.”

“Oh, I feel so special and appreciated, I’m so glad that you, as my friend, want to be mean to me and  _ just  _ me. What an honour,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his lips.

“Damn straight, Gross,” she says, smiling when he pulls into the parking lot of a McDonalds. “You’re paying, because I’m poor.”

“Your mom is a doctor,” he says, “and I know you have some amount of disposable income, because every time I see you, you’re wearing a new pair of those ugly tennis shoes that look like rectangles.” 

“Yeah, and I spent all of that income on my gorgeous rectangle shoes,” she rebuts, and Ben rolls his eyes, locking the car and opening the restaurant door for her. She ducks under his arm and pinches his ribs, just for effect, but he jerks regardless. Her stomach somersaults. “You order, I claim a table?” she asks, and he nods, slipping his wallet out of his pocket.

“No onion, no lettuce, extra pickle?” he asks, and she nods, trying not to let her full body shock show at his remembrance of her order. He turns away from her and taps his fingers against the counter.

She lets her eyes linger on the hair at the back of his neck before she turns around and slides into a booth. She checks her phone, and cringes at a missed call from Eleanor, and a string of texts.

_ eleanor: helllllloooooooooo _

_ eleanor: where are u young lady _

_ eleanor: i will text until i get an answer _

_ eleanor: or until i get tired _

_ eleanor: i can finally prove to you that i know all the words to bohemian rhapsody! _

_ eleanor: is this the real life _

_ eleanor: is this just fantasy _

_ eleanor: actually thats boring nvm _

_ eleanor: give me attentioooooooooooonnnnnnn ill cryyyyyyyyy _

_ eleanor: :’( _

_ devi: jesus christ el have you no shame??? _

_ eleanor: when i want attention i want attention and no one can change that now call me bitch _

_ devi: im with ben rn  _

_ eleanor: since when did it become hoes before bros _

_ devi: ,,,,, what  _

_ eleanor: noooooooooooothing _

_ devi: eleanor i swear to god _

_ devi: ben is coming with our food but i am going to GET YOU later _

_ eleanor: if you arent busy getting ben ;) _

“I have no idea if they gave you extra pickles or not because the cashier frowned when I told him extra pickles, so you’re getting what you’re getting,” he says, setting the plastic tray on the table and smiling at her. She tucks her phone away hurriedly, as if he could see through the back of it what her conversation was about. “I got ketchup for your fries, though, so you have to forgive me.”

“Never,” she says, taking her container of fries and dunking one in ketchup before flinging it at Ben, over the table. “A lack of pickles is an injustice.”

“You’re cleaning up this mess,” he says, and dodges another fry, “fast food workers do not deserve this.”

“Duh,” Devi says, giving up on her french fry battle, “except, I’m gonna fight you for dominance until ultimately you end up cleaning it.”

“How is that fair?”

“How is it fair that you’re rich and have a maid and a dishwasher you’re allowed to use?” she asks, folding her arms over the table and looking at him earnestly. “I mean, by letting you clean this ketchup-y booth seat, I am doing you a service.”

“You do know that I clean, right?” Ben asks, looking at her over the straw in his soft drink, “I even helped you with your dishes that time I ate dinner at your house.”

“You just wanted to make a good impression on my mom.”

“I cried in front of your mom in her office,” Ben says, and Devi raises her eyebrows— she had thought her mom was exaggerating when she told her that— and resists the urge to reach across the table and fold his hand into hers. “So, really, I think the chance for good impressions was long gone by the time I did your dishes.”

“Why’d you do our dishes if you didn’t want to make a good impression?” Devi asks, half expecting a  _ wouldn’t you like to know,  _ but instead he stands his hand up on the tips of his fingers and scrapes the tabletop.

“I just wanted to hang out with you.”

“Lying is a sin,” she blurts, before she can think it through, and claps a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that, I’m sorry,” she says, between her fingers, and he smiles sad.

“I mean, it's okay. I’m not really that surprised that you dont believe me,” he whispers, and for a moment, she is certain that he is going to reach forward and touch her, grab her hand and kiss it and lace their fingers together. But then he drops his hands into his lap and the moment passes and the entire world rushes to catch up to her. “Considering we spent our entire lives hating each other.”

She laughs in the back of her throat. “You were the first person I told that I never slept with Paxton— and the only person I actually, like, wanted to tell. Or was ready to tell, I guess.” She shrugs, looking down at her hands in her lap, but feels Bens gaze on her, intent, and she looks up.

Blue blue blue eyes, they will be at the beginning and ending of her everything, won't they?

“Thank you,” he says, nods, and falls into a silence that she is too shocked to break.

* * *

“This is your stop,” Ben says, and to her wavering shock, follows her out of his car and up to her front door, lingering like the fallen leaves of autumn. “I had a good time, surprisingly enough.”

“Surprisingly?” she asks, putting a hand to her chest in mock insult. He smiles, something shy and full of laughter.

“Yeah, considering it was you, and everything.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Gross, I’m a goddamn delight.” She slugs him softly in the arm, and he crinkles his face like a child. “Thanks for not making me clean the booth up by myself, by the way.”

“We make a good team, David,” he says, and scuffs the toe of his shoe against the concrete, “especially when I’m the team lead.”

“You wouldn't be able to handle me as the team lead.”

“I bet you believe that,” Ben says, and looks like he is about to say something else before a light in the livingroom clicks on behind his head. 

“I have to go in, someone just turned a light on, and I don’t want to die because a weird white boy was alone with me on my porch,” she says, trapping her bottom lip in between her teeth.

“I thought I was a narc that your mom loved?” he asks, sounding almost genuinely upset, and Devi scoffs.

“Just because Nalini likes you doesn’t mean you can be alone with me on my porch,” Devi says. She smiles at him, hoping it says what she cannot, and moves to open the door and duck inside.

Ben grabs her arm, though, turning her around and— he is not that close to her, no longer than he was before he turned, but his face is crowding her field of view like she has tunnel vision for him and his eyes are so blue— his lips part, and for a moment she feels herself tilt her head up like he is going to kiss her, but someone in the house makes a noise and the moment bends.

Bends, not breaks, because he tilts down and kisses her cheek and whispers, “goodnight, Devi,” and he is gone before she can feel the heat of his lips fade from her cheek. 

She watches his tail lights disappear down the road, feeling herself blush blood red, and she makes an embarrassing noise, something like a squeak, and scrambles into her house.

The light that had been on is off now, and it makes her want to rip her hair out— she could have taken her chances and he could have stayed even if for just a moment. She pulls her shoes off with an unwarranted anger at no one but herself, and goes up the stairs with a well rehearsed lightness.

She tosses her backpack in a corner and strips off her clothes— the back of her sweater is embarrassingly sweating, and she sticks her tongue out at herself before tossing it in a hamper and pulling her pajamas on. She paces a path along her room before remembering her earlier threat-slash-promise to Eleanor, and picks up her phone.

There is an ominous  _ use protection  _ text from Eleanor waiting for her, and she shrieks in the back of her throat before pressing the call button.

“What the hell?” she says when Eleanor picks up, and kicks a pile of dirty clothes on her floor.

“On,  _ bonjour  _ to you too, Devi. I love hearing from you,  _ mon amie,  _ especially when you’re in an especially foul mood,” Eleanor says, and Devi closes her eyes, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. 

“Cut it with the French before I lose my shit,” Devi says, and Eleanor blows a raspberry. “What was the whole  _ use protection  _ thing about, Eleanor?”

“It’s about how you’re horny and on a date with Ben,” Eleanor says plainly, a leisurely quality to her voice that makes Devi’s jaw drop open.

She stammers, and Eleanor giggles, and she considers throwing her phone at the wall. “I…  _ what?”  _ she manages, and sits down on her bed heavily.

“You guys went on a date,” Eleanor says, and Devi can hear her conviction wavering, “right?”

“No- I… I don’t understand why you would think that we just—”

“We need to go over the date checklist,” Eleanor says, and Devi hears her moving around on the other end of the line but is too shocked to ask what she is doing.

“The what?” she asks dumbly.

“Checklist,” Eleanor repeats, without explanation. “Now, did he pick you up?”

“I… sort of? We were already at his house.”

“I’m marking that as a yes,” Eleanor says, “did he hold the door open for you?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he pay?”

“That’s sexist, El.”

“Just answer the fucking question, Vishwakumar.”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Did he drive you home?”

“He was driving me home regardless, Eleanor, I don’t see how that matters.”

“Did he kiss you?” Eleanor asks, the million dollar question that makes Devi’s temperature skyrocket, and she lifts her hand to her cheek unconsciously. “Devi? Hello? You're still there, right?” 

“Yeah,” Devi says, finding her vocabulary again. 

“Yeah to the kiss, or yeah you’re still here?”

“I’m not answering your question about the kiss, Eleanor,” she says, running a hand over her hair and falling backwards on her bed. She knows that refusing to answer will make Eleanor think it happened—

(A part of her wants Eleanor to think that, she realizes, wants Eleanor to know that something might be there, something might be happening between her and Ben and there is a chance that she is falling headlong into fantasy and she cannot bring herself to stop)

— but she cannot say it out loud. She cannot verbalize the feeling of his lips against her cheek, and instead, she stays quiet, her mind spinning like a carousel.

“You went on a date with him, Devi,” Eleanor says, her dreamy, whimsical tone bleeding into the words, as if this is the start of a beautiful love story instead of a-a mistake, a misunderstanding that will hurt in the morning and bleed into a lifetime of shouldered pain. “Didn’t you?” she adds, and it is barely a question.

Instead of answering, Devi hangs up, and lets her phone drop to the floor.

* * *

_ ii. _

_  
_ _ “Amma,”  _ Devi calls out, ducking her head into one of the patient rooms and frowning when Nalini is not in it. “Mom, I brought the binder thing you asked for, but the fact that you aren’t here to get it is a little irritating!”

“Don’t talk to your mother like that,” Nalini says, her voice floating from somewhere down the hall, “leave the binder at reception and wait for me.  _ Angeye iru.”  _

“Okay,” Devi says, pushing the door to the reception office open and tossing the binder on top of the desk before sitting heavily in a desk chair, spinning around aimlessly.

Her mothers office has always been nice, framed art and posters, waxy fake plants that Devi and Mohan had picked out after Nalini started her practice, a bin of Devi’s old toys and upholstered seats in ugly fabric. It smells like a doctors office, and Devi can still remember running up and down the hallways after the sale had been closed. There is still a dent by one of the doors that she and Mohan had made on accident and lied to Nalini about.

“You’ve sunk to the level of nepotism hire now, David?” someone says, and Devi’s head jerks up, turning her phone off. Ben is leaning against the desk, all elbows and forearms, smiling at her like a God. She rolls her eyes at him, and pushes her chair towards the desk.

“I’m just waiting for my mom,” she says, then shakes her head, holding a hand up. “Wait, aren’t you, like, gonna inherit a whole law firm from your fat dad?”

“First of all, my dad is jacked,” he argues, pointing at her, “second of all, yes, but I’m also going to Harvard and law school, so I think I have a little more qualifications for nepotism than you.”

“The point of nepotism is that you  _ aren’t  _ qualified, and you don’t know if you’re going to Harvard or not, Gross,” she says, “we aren’t even seniors yet.”

“It’s called the power of positive thinking, David.”

“Ugh, I hate you,” Devi says, and spins the chair around, refusing to look at him. He reaches across the desk, though, grabbing the back of the chair and turning it to face him.

No one looks at her the way Ben does. Like he is going to figure out what makes her tick, like she is something more than her body, like he is looking for  _ her  _ first. Paxton had looked at her, up and down, when he used to look at her at all. But Ben looks at her eyes first, and somehow, that thrills her more than Paxton gaze ever did.

“I’m impossible to hate.”

“You’re pronouncing easy wrong,” she says, and her voice shakes. Ben eyebrows wrinkle, and he opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Nalini appears through the door to reception. Ben jumps away from her like they were doing something wrong, like she burns, but Nalini does not seem to notice. 

“Oh, hello Benjamin,” she says, smiling at him. She sets a manila file folder on the desk and leans over it, shaking Ben's hand. Devi rolls her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I lost my wallet, and I was here yesterday, so I figured I should come look for it,” he says, tucking his hands into his pockets and flushing red when he sees the look on Devis face.

“I can go check the room for you— which one were you in?”

“Three.”

Nalini nods, and walks out. Devi barks out a laugh once Nalini is far enough out of earshot, and Ben glares at her. “Not only do you have a zitface, but you lost your wallet while unsuccessfully trying to get rid of the zitface.”

“My face is zitless, and I was not here for that,” Ben says, and Devi raises her eyebrows, watching Ben open and close his mouth in regret.

“Oh, I am not giving up until I know what you were here, at my moms dermatology practice, for,” she says, propping her elbows on the desk and resting her chin in her hands. “You have a rash on your ass, don’t you?”

“I don’t, but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Aww, why not?”

“Because there is no world in which you need to know anything about my ass,” he says, a tone of finality, and she decides not to push anymore.

“Ugh, fine, but I hate you even more than I did when you walked in.”

“I’m so glad you feel that way,” he says, sounding almost sincere, and placing both hands over his heart, and smiling benevolently. She rolls her eyes. “I am genuinely touched.”

“I’ve always been told I am a kind and giving soul.”

“You mean that you aren’t?”

“Oh, I think that’s actually you, Ben,” she says, pure condescension.

“What is Benjamin?” Nalini asks, reappearing from the hallway. She leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest, and Devi opens and closes her mouth. Ben snorts, and Devi flips him off behind her back, where Nalini cannot see.

“Um… a narc?” Devi finally answers, and hears Ben's quiet gasp of insult.

“I always knew it,” Nalini says, sliding her hand into her coat and pulling his wallet out.  _ “Inga.  _ It was stuck in the chair.” 

“Thank you, Dr Vishwakumar,” he says, taking the wallet and flicking it open before slipping it into his back pocket, “I think I would be lost without my frozen yogurt loyalty card.”

“A frozen yogurt loyalty card?” Devi asks, raising her eyebrows and looking at him incredulously. He is smirking, and she snorts. “Seriously? A frozen yogurt loyalty card? You eat frozen yogurt often enough to warrant having a  _ frozen yogurt loyalty card?” _

“Don’t you?” he asks plainly.

“Devi, enough,” Nalini says before Devi can open her mouth to reply, shaking her head, and a small coil of resentment rises instantly in her stomach. Ben had the last word, so why was she getting scolded? But, then she remembers that this is Nalini’s office, that a patient could come in at any time, and seeing their doctor's daughter fighting with another patient would be a bad look.

“Alright,  _ amma,”  _ she says, and stands up, ducking past Nalini, out of reception and into the waiting room. “Do you need anything else before I go?”

“Yes, actually,” Nalini says, a look on her face that suggests lists, and Devi cringes inwardly, “I need you to go shopping for dinner.”

Devi opens her mouth and closes it again. “I…” she finally says, but Nalini waves a hand. 

“Not a whole meal— and it is just spaghetti, you will be fine.” She takes a notepad and a pen from the desk, and scrawls down a list, tearing the page off and handing it to Devi. It is short, and Devi spares a glance at Ben half pleading. She sees an idea spark to life in his eyes and she hopes that it is the right one.

“I can take her,” he says, immediately flushing red, “to-to the grocery store— that way she isn’t taking your car.”

Nalini tilts her head to the side, and looks him up and down briefly, before nodding. “Alright,” she says, “be back before dinner. Obviously.”

_ “Seri, amma,”  _ Devi says, and grabs Ben's arm, pulling him backwards out of the office. He goes easily, the bell jingling when she pushes the door open.

“I can't believe you were able to silently coerce me into taking you grocery shopping,” Ben says, scrubbing a hand down his face after she lets him go, and pulling his keys from his pocket. “You didn’t even  _ say  _ anything, and I still offered.”

“It’s because you’re obsessed with me.”

“You wish.”

“Ugh, I’m too focused on spaghetti to argue with you,” Devi says, pulling open the passenger side door of his car and jumping into the seat. “Deliver me to the grocery store, Gross.”

“I will later,” he says, putting the key in the ignition and starting the car.

She scoffs, and reaches over, pulling the keys from the ignition and moving to sit on them quickly. “You’re kidnapping me.”

“I’m not kidnapping you, Devi. What the hell?” he asks, and leans forward, smacking his forehead against the steering wheel. “Why would I kidnap you? I see you everyday and I am perfectly happy with that amount of time.”

“Then, why are we going to the grocery story “later,”” she says, using air quotes, much to Ben's evident displeasure, because he groans and looks at her slit eyed through his bangs.

“I have a surprise for you,” he says, and shifts, looking at his hands. His forehead is still resting against the steering wheel, and she knows that his refusal to look at her means he is being genuine.

“Answer one question,” she tells him, and he nods awkwardly, “is the surprise a shallow grave in the woods or an ocean burial?”

“No, Devi, I am not going to murder you,” he says, sounding defeated, and it makes her heart deflate. Ben is endlessly optimistic— he calls detention internships and put up with a girlfriend who did not know his middle name and makes the best out of her running away from her mom and towards him— and she has only ever seen him defeated when his parents inevitably let him down. When they crush him over and over. But now, he feels this way because of  _ her.  _ He is hurt because of her _.  _

She is close enough to him, present enough in his life, that he is hurt when she pushes him away.

“Okay,” she says, and sets his keys in the center console, “okay.”

He looks up, breaking into a smile like the sun rising. “Okay?”

“I want you to surprise me, Ben,” she tells him, and reaches out, smoothing her thumb across his cheekbone. She jerks back quickly, though, like he burns, and when she tucks her hands between her legs, they are shaking.

“O-Okay,” he says. He starts the car and backs out of the parking lot, letting the shaking silence between them last.

She looks down at her hands when she feels that his attention is focused on the road and not her. The tips of her fingers are shaking, and she lets them drop back into her lap. “Okay,” she whispers, and locks away the memory of the softness of his skin.

* * *

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Devi says, rushing to undo her seatbelt and push open the car door, with the soundtrack of Ben’s laughter reverberating in her ears. “Frozen yogurt? For real?”

She whirls around to face him, and he shrugs. The collar of his jean jacket brushes against his jaw. “I have a loyalty card,” he says, and she smiles, in spite of the ridiculousness of it all, “what can I say? I really want my free yogurt.”

“Whatever gets me to dessert faster,” she says, and pulls the door open. The interior smells like strawberries, and she squeaks in delight, ignoring Bens indescribable snort behind her. “Oh, I am going to max out your credit card.”

“I usually doubt most things that you say, but I doubt that the most.” 

“Why do you doubt that the most?” she asks, looking up at him curiously, eyes narrowed.

“Because,” he says, pulling the door open for her, “maxing out any credit card— let alone mine— in a frozen yogurt shop sounds impossible.”

“I’m gonna get all the expensive toppings, Gross, this is on your bankroll.”

“It’s by weight, David, not topping quality,” he says, smiling and waving at the cashier— a pretty girl with long blonde hair and eyes the colour of matcha— who smiles at him like he hung the stars, “You would have to pile, like, tons of yogurt on the scale. Actual tons.”

“Challenge accepted,” she says, snatching up a bright blue cup from a dispenser and filling it with strawberry yogurt, “say goodbye to your good credit score.”

“I don’t think you know how credit works, David.”

“I don;t think you know how anything works, Ben.”

“That’s very juvenile of you.”

“Just shut up and let me make my bank breaking dessert,” she tells him, scooping gummy bears and rainbow sprinkles on top of her yogurt. By the time she has finished and set her yogurt on the scale, there is chocolate sauce dripping over the side and a disbelieving look on Ben's face.

“Christ,” is all he says, pulling his credit card and loyalty card from his wallet and passing them to the cashier. The charge does not even break twenty dollars, and Devi is unreasonably disappointed as he pays.

“I’m surprised you didn’t go for the sweethearts deal,” the cashier— her name tag reads  _ Mary—  _ says, and Devi splutters, eyes going wide. Ben looks between her and Mary quickly, his mouth opening and closing.

Finally, he says, “I— we aren’t sweethearts.” He points at Devi, and then waves his hand quickly, as if saying  _ no way in hell would I ever date her. _

She is unreasonably disappointed, despite it being the truth, despite it never being a reality, and she nods jerkily along with Ben's words even though it sounds as though they are coming from underwater. “I’m completely out of his league,” she manages, and the look Mary gives her is withering.

“Okay,” Mary says, and Devi looks at Ben, tries to catch his eye, but he is too busy sliding his card back into his wallet. She locks eyes with Mary instead, poisonously green, and smiles as brightly as she can manage.

“You ready, David?” Ben asks, passing her yogurt to her, but Mary stops him.

“You're single, yeah, Ben?” she asks, and jealousy roars to life inside of Devi likes a fire. She sets his yogurt down on the counter to stop from throwing it in Mary’s hair.

“Um,” Ben starts, and casts a look that Devi is sure she imagines over his shoulder at her, “yeah, I guess.”

“Awesome.” She scrawls what Devi can only assume is her phone number on the back of the receipt, and hands it to him, smiling like a billboard. “Enjoy your yogurt, Ben.” 

Devi picks her yogurt up and follows Ben out of the restaurant, sitting on the wrought iron furniture outside of the shop. Suddenly, she is not that hungry anymore, and she picks forlornly at the banana slices on top of her yogurt pile.

“You okay?” Ben asks, through a mouthful of cappuccino yogurt, “you were so excited to eat me out of house and home a few minutes ago, and now you aren’t fulfilling your threats.”

“And it’s so unlike me to not eat you out of house and home?” she asks, stirring her yogurt. “Dick.”

He frowns, and sets his spoon back in the yogurt. “What's wrong?”

“Nothings wrong.”

“Okay, we can either go back and forth like this for twenty minutes until you give up and tell me what the problem is,” he says, leaning forward in his chair, “or you can tell me now, we can finish our yogurt, and go shopping and bring your mom the stuff she needs for dinner in time for dinner.”

Devi groans, and lets herself slide down in her chair until Ben repeats her name angrily and she straightens back up. “Mary likes you,” Devi says, taking in Ben's raised eyebrows and parted mouth, “and she does not like me.”

Ben is quiet for a moment, then says, “the first part is obvious, because I’m irresistible.”

“Ben,” she deadpans, her face slack, “come on.”

“Why do you think she doesn’t like you?”

“I know she doesn’t,” Devi says, “because she looks at me exactly the same way that Shira did.”

Ben turns his head, looking at her sideways. She can see in his eyes that he does not believe her, but she cannot collect the will to care. She knows that she will be upset about it later, will complain to Eleanor or Kamala and stop speaking to him for a while. That he will bleed out of her life when he dates Mary, and she tries to make herself feel unsurprised by it.

But the thing about Ben is that he is permanent. That he has always been there. He has always offered insults and competition and sometimes his home, and to lose that now— to lose his eyes, his hands, his smile,  _ him—  _ feels like losing something essential, something permanent and important, something that will change the makeup of her DNA and wreck her everyday. 

“How did Shira look at you?” he finally asks, a catch in his voice. 

“Like… like I was a problem that she would get around to solving later,” Devi says, and looks down at her yogurt. It has melted completely, gummy bears staring up at her in a strawberry soup. “Or like I was taking something away from her.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben says, tapping his fingers against the table, “I… dating Shira was weird for me.”

“Weird for  _ you?” _

“I don’t even know if I ever liked her, like, for real,” he says, “I liked that she made people think I wasn’t alone. And that she liked me and wanted to actually touch me. Before Shira, I don’t think anyone really touched me for, like, five years.”

“Wow, Ben,” Devi says, resisting the urge to reach across the table and take his hands, “that’s really sad.” 

“Thanks, David,” he says, and rolls his eyes.

“Okay, but seriously,” she starts, and leans forward. She scoops a gummy bear out of her yogurt cup, and rolls it around in her mouth like a breath mint, trying to guess the flavour. “I don’t think Shira made you happy, because even though she wanted to touch you— which, ew— and made you feel like you seemed less lonely, she still wasn’t a good girlfriend. And you probably weren’t a good boyfriend.”

“Rude.” 

“She didn’t want me in your life, Ben,” Devi says, and hears her voice wobble as she speaks, hating herself for it, “and you did, apparently— which I can’t blame you for, because I’m amazing— and because of that, she wasn’t right for you.”

“You’re psychoanalyzing my past relationship,” Ben says, halfway incredulous, “should’ve known that this was where my day would end up.”

“Damn straight.” She decides to drink the rest of her melted yogurt like a shot, and tosses it elegantly in the trash can behind her. “Point is, do what's right for you. Or what you want to do, I guess. But when it goes wrong with Mary— because it will— I’m gonna say I told you so and I’m gonna enjoy it.”

Ben laughs, shaking his head and standing up, pushing his chair in. “I’m sure you will, David.”

She gets up, and watches as he tosses his frozen yogurt cup— stuffing the receipt with Mary’s phone number written on it inside of his pocket— and follows him to his car.

* * *

_ iii. _

_ 5:24 PM _

_ devi: we’re still on for the movie right??? _

_ 5:37 PM _

_ devi: hellloooooooooo _

_ 5:50 PM _

_ devi: okay well im still going because i want to see this movie even though its made for children _

_ devi: your loss if you aren't coming _

_ devi: but also pls dont make me see this movie alone with ben _

_ devi: it'll be insufferable _

_ devi: ben is the worst _

_ 6:19 PM _

_ devi: i officially hate you guys _

“I don’t think they’re coming,” Devi says, turning around and catching sight of Ben at concessions. There is a large popcorn on the counter in front of him, and a stack of candy. “Jesus Christ, you’re gonna deplete their stock, asshole.” 

“But their profits will be so good,” he says, passing her a box of sour patch kids and making a halfway pleading face at her, “I’m paying so much more here than I would if I was buying this stuff at a store.”

“You’re not smuggling snacks in here, are you?” the cashier asks from behind a popcorn machine. “Because now I feel like you’re smuggling snacks in here.”

“Why would I be buying all of this if I was smuggling snacks, Ira?” Ben asks, unwarranted audacity. 

“Yeah, Ira?” Devi repeats, and Ira raises his hands up in surrender and disappears behind the door to a utility closet. “Wow, we were so mean to him,” she says, looking up at Ben, who has opened a package of Milk Duds and eaten half the box, “why were we so mean to him?”

“He tried to dunk on me at my bar mitzvah,” Ben says, and shrugs, handing her the stack of candy boxes before grabbing the box of popcorn. “Where are El and Fabiola?”   
  


“In Hell, with the rest of the traitors,” Devi answers, walking out of the lobby and into the hallway with the theatre doors attached to them, “I’ve texted them sixty bajillion times since five-thirty, and neither of them have replied, so basically they’re dead to me.”

“We could’ve just left,” Ben says, and it hits Devi directly in the chest. Ben's presence in her life has declined since Mary and the yogurt shop, and she can already feel him slipping through her hands like water. Can already picture him leaving her behind, and it leaves a very precise ache in her chest that radiates outward and she can feel it in all of her bones.

“Wow,” she says, and tries to sound like he has not broken her heart, “I wasn’t aware you were only interested in friendship with my friends and not me.”

“Um, no,” Ben says, following her into the theatre, “I take offense to so many of the statements in that sentence, David, that I’m not even sure where to start in listing them.”

“You sound pretentious,” Devi says, choosing a seat at random and ripping open a package of M&M’s angrily. Some of them spill out and make a dull  _ tink  _ noise against the floor.

“First of all,” he starts, ignoring her dig and sitting down, slotting the popcorn bucket between his legs, “I’m interested in a friendship with you because I— don’t hate you as much as I once did.”

“So kind.”

“The only reason I said we could leave is because this is a children's movie. A movie for children. Kids movie—”

“— You don’t have to keep repeating synonyms for childrens movie,” Devi says, half scowling, “you’re just doing it to be annoying.”

“I’m emphasizing my point.”

“Like I said, annoying.” 

“I want to be your friend, Devi,” Ben says, and she snaps her head up, looking at him with an unwarranted amount of joy, and there is a real kind of vulnerability in his eyes, and she has to curl her fingers into the armrests of her seat to stifle the urge to touch him.

“I… okay,” she says, nodding, and turns to face the screen as the lights dim before going out altogether and the ads begin to glow to life on the screen.

Eleanor had chosen  _ Frozen II  _ as the movie she wanted to watch— which should not have mattered anymore the moment she chose not to show up— but Ben had already purchased the tickets by the time she had neglected to show up. Devi cannot say she regrets it, though, not when the opening credits start and make her smile right away.

Ben, however, seems less amused, scoffing in five minutes intervals and shaking his head at every joke. “This is unrealistic,” he whispers, leaning across the armrest to be closer to her. He smells good, sandalwood-esque, and it makes her skin feel hot. “Why didn’t Iduna interrupt the story Agnarr told that was, like, lowkey racist.”

“Ben,” Devi says, turning to look at him. He raises his eyebrows, as if expecting a meaningful response. “Shut up.”

“Hey, rude.”

“This is a movie theatre, people will get annoyed,” she hisses, and nods towards someone who makes a shushing noise in their general direction, “shut up, before I make you.”

He gets a cocky, altogether too pleased look on his face, and smirks. “How exactly would you make me?”

She flushes red, thinking about kissing him, just for effect— tangling her hands in his hair and pressing her lips against his, hard— before holding up a fist, shaking it. “I’ll shove my entire fist in your mouth. How's that?”

“Point taken.” He turns back around, watching the movie in scoffing, head shaking silence.

She feels something press against her arm as Elsa is tossed around in the ocean, and she almost jumps, but then Ben's fingers brush against her palm and every nerve in her body sparks into flame.

  
“Ben,” she whispers, looking at him half panicked as he slips his fingers in between hers, lacing them together. He does not say anything, just puts his finger to his lips, saying  _ be quiet  _ with silence, and she forces her eyes forward.

Ben's presence and his hand in hers is all consuming, though, and she is not sure how the movie ends.

* * *

“I’m surprised you didn’t cry, David,” Ben says as they walk out of the theatre, tossing the empty popcorn bucket and candy boxes in a trashcan and tucking his hands into his pockets. He had pulled his hand from hers as soon as the lights went up, looking regretful, and she had tried her best not to cry. 

“Why would I have cried?” 

“Elsa got frozen?” Ben says, looking genuinely concerned that she had missed it, “in Ahtohollan. Y’know,  _ go too far and you’ll be drowned.  _ She went too far.” 

“Oh, yeah,” Devi says, and shakes her head, shrugging, “I don’t know. It’s a kids film, so I knew she’d be fine.”

“Wow, stone cold killer, huh?” Ben says, bumping her shoulder. “What's wrong, Devi?”

“What?” she says, looking at him strangely, “nothings wrong.”

“You just seem a little off,” he says, grabbing her elbow and pulling her around to face him. Sky blue eyes crowd her field of vision and he has the faintest sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of his nose, and she wants to tilt forward and kiss each one of them. “And I want to make sure you’re okay, before I wreck you at skeeball.” 

_ Skeeball?  _ “What?” she says, fears forgotten for just a moment, “what the hell are you talking about?”

He nods his head backwards and— oh, okay, there is an arcade as part of the theatre. She smirks, already feeling the adrenaline of competing, competing with  _ Ben  _ spark to life in her mind. “You seriously think you can beat me at skeeball?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking her hip out, pure audacity. 

“In my sleep,” he rebuts, grabbing her elbow again and tugging her in the direction of the machine.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure you need to get tokens or something,” she tells him, pointing to the token slot. Ben, though, pulls a plastic card from his wallet and slides it along a slot in the machine. It glows to life, LED lights across the front saying  _ ten balls left.  _ “Um, what the hell was that?”

“A repeat customer token card,” he explains, repeating the credit card swiping maneuver on her machine before standing up straight and grabbing a ball from the dispenser slot on his. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she asks, tossing a ball that falls directly into the hundred point circle in the corner, “you have a loyalty card for a frozen yogurt shop  _ and  _ a token voucher thingy from a movie theatre arcade?”

“Obviously.” 

“God,” she says, scoring one hundred fifty points in quick succession, “you have Apple Music, don’t you?”

“Better than Spotify,” he says, in place of an answer, and Devi groans with her entire body.

“I know I say this a lot,” she tells him, her tone stern, “but you are genuinely the worst, most pretentious asshole that I have ever met. Ever. Like, I’m going to say that at your funeral— and you’re older, so you’ll die first.”

“But I’ll vote first, buy lottery tickets first, be able to drink first, and buy spray paint first,” he says, and the ball he tosses goes wide, colliding with the plastic barrier on the side of the machine and falling into the bottom, “oh, and I could drive first.”

“But I’m still smarter, so who really wins?” she asks, and throws her last ball— it falls directly to the center in a perfect swish, and the machine flashes with her score. “Thirteen hundred fifty. Beat that.” 

“Dammit,” Ben says, his last ball falling into the fifty point slot. “Nine hundred.” 

“Eat it, Gross,” she says, pumping a fist in the air and dancing around the arcade.

“Okay, but I will definitely beat you at air hockey,” he says, holding a finger up, “you can't be better than me at every game this arcade has to offer.” 

“I totally could, though, that's the thing,” she says, grabbing the paddle and waiting for him to swipe his stupid arcade token card sighing when the airy buzz starts up. The puck dispenses from her side of the table, and she waits for Ben to straighten up before hitting it. 

“Your self assurance is insane,” Ben says, hitting the puck back to her and groaning when she blocks it, “and probably unwarranted.” 

“Says the loser at skeeball,” she says, and hits the puck directly into his goal, jumping and pumping her fist in the air.

“You’re taking performance enhancing drugs,” he says, grabbing the puck and serving it, “that's the only explanation. I’m too jacked to be losing to you.” 

“You aren’t jacked, I’m just amazing at everything,” she says, scoring again and relishing in his throaty groan. 

“Unbelievable.” 

“What’s unbelievable,” she says, blocking his serve and hitting it back, aiming deliberately for a corner, “is that you’re going out with Mary.”

He falters, and misses his next strike at the puck, “What?” he sets down his paddle, and plants his hands on the table. “You think I’m going out with Mary?”

“I mean, you kept the receipt with her number on it,” she says, swiping her paddle back and forth on the tabletop, “and you haven’t hung out with me as much recently, so I just assumed you had a girl taking up your time again.”

“God, you are so wrong,” he says, and scrubs his hands over his face, “just when I was beginning to think you were even a fraction as smart as me.”

“Don’t be a dick.” 

“Oh, I’m gonna be a dick,” he says, and waves his hand in an uninterpretable gesture, “I’m gonna be  _ such  _ a dick because you’ve given me, like, zero credit.” 

“What?”

“You gave me that warning about your interaction with Mary,” Ben says, “and I went on a date with her anyway, and you texted me while I was there, and she kind of freaked, and long story short I have a loyalty card to a  _ different  _ frozen yogurt shop now.” 

“Seriously?” Devi asks, raising her eyebrows. The air goes out on the hockey table and flashes their score. Two to zero. She smiles, in spite of the fact that her victory is not exactly deserved.

“Yep.” Ben grabs the puck, sliding it into his goal and putting the paddle back into its slot. “It was… very embarrassing and not my best moment.” 

“Mhm, yeah, and who warned you again, Benjamin?” Devi asks, crossing her arms and looking at him with her eyebrows raised. “Remind me of who that was.”

“God, probably,” he answers, and gestures over her shoulder. “Come take a photo with me in the photo booth.”

“Why?” she asks, but follows him into the booth regardless, “it’s not like you could look good in any photo where you’re next to me.”

“I want to commemorate the moment where you were wrong,” he says, holding the curtina open for her and letting her sit against the wall. He follows her, feeding cash into the machine and pressing the start button.

“Hey, Ben,” she says, watching the countdown on the camera. He looks at her in the camera lens, and she smiles. “I told you so,” she says, the camera flashing and immortalizing his reaction forever.

* * *

_ iv. _

“Gross, are you fucking kidding me?” she says, heels clicking against the sidewalk outside of his country club. He looks up from his phone, and rolls his eyes, looking at her like she brought the end of the world along with her. “You said your tie was gonna be blue!” 

“You have no listening comprehension skills,” he says back, tucking his phone in the pocket of his suit jacket. His eyes rove over her figure— a bright red dress brushing her knees that was as country club as she could find in her closet and black heels— and he tosses his hands in the air, “I said it was going to be red.” 

“I don’t believe you,” she says, punching him in the shoulder before slotting her hands against her hips, “you wanted to match with me, admit it.”

“I’m not a liar, David,” he says, offering her his arm. She rolls her eyes, but takes it anyway. Ben was the one who invited her, after all, to a fundraiser for God only knows what, and she is not going to actively be rude in front of a bunch of rich, old and wrinkly white people who could have connections to Ivy League colleges. 

“Bullshit,” she says as he pulls the door open and escorts her in. His country club looks exactly the way she imagined it would: ugly carpets, cushy looking chairs and marble-topped bars. There is a dark wood banquet table against one wall, pinning heavy looking gold curtains against the wallpaper and attracting crowds of old people in cocktail dresses and designer suits who walk away with small plates of shrimp and fancy cheese.

Instantly, Devi feels alone, other, like she does not belong here, but then Ben squeezes his hand against her forearm and whispers, “just tell them about your GPA, and they’ll love you.” And then he winks at her, making her entire body blush. 

“This is going to sound like a ridiculous request, considering I usually do well with the old-ass teacher types,” she starts, and smiles sweetly at a woman who looks in her direction, “but, this feels like the start of a Jordan Peele film, and I refuse to die surrounded by white people, so please don’t leave me.” 

“You’re gonna owe me for this, Devi.” 

“I will give you one favourable reference for a job interview or a frat… application?” she says, and he looks down at her with raised eyebrows, “is that how frat things work?”

“I’m more insulted that you think I would ever join a frat.” 

“You’re enough of a douchebag to do it,” she says, and shrugs.

He hums, and untangles his arm from hers. “I think I’m gonna leave you now to go talk to the white people,” he says, and she yelps, wrapping her hands around his arm.

“Okay, seriously, I don’t know any of these people and I refuse to let you leave me alone in a place where I know no one and you know everyone,” she says, looping her arm around his forcefully, “it would be a real douchebag move to abandon me in here, especially since this is your…  _ domain, _ and I am your guest.” 

He groans, and rolls his eyes, but does not pull his arm away. “Fine,” he says, “but you can’t insult me in front of these people. They think I’m their God.” 

“You might end up owing me by the end of this,” she says, and allows him to whisk her towards a small group of women dressed like Queen Elizabeth II who sip wine and talk in hushed, measured voices.

“Hello, Mrs Smith, Mrs Kingston, Miss Harrison,” Ben says, gesturing to each of the women as he says their names. Then, he turns to look down at Devi, and she feels herself blush, but forces herself to smile. “This is Devi Vishwakumar, I go to school with her.”

“Devi,” one of the women— Kingston, Devi wants to say, but she is not quite sure— repeats, smiling up at her from one of the cushy chairs Devi had looked at earlier, “that’s very different, but very pretty. It’s nice to meet you.” 

“You as well,” Devi says, smiling for real this time, and shaking her hand when she offers it.

“How long have you known Ben?” she asks, and motions for Devi to sit down. She looks up at Ben, mouth parted, half terrified, but he nods and extracts his arm from her grip.

“I’ll go get something to drink,” he says, “sparkling grape juice, right?”

“Indeed,” she says, smiling thinly and resolving to get her revenge for him breaking his promise and leaving her alone. She watches him walk away before sitting down carefully, tucking her skirt in and tapping her fingers against her knees. “I’m sorry, you asked me a question, Mrs… Kingston, yeah?” Devi asks, trying to sound as polite as possible.

“I asked how long you’ve known Ben,” she repeats, sipping from her wine and looking at Devi kindly. The other two women— Devi has already forgotten their names, and she feels unreasonably guilty about it— are reabsorbed in their own conversation, not bothering to acknowledge Devi or Mrs Kingston.

“I’ve known him since we were five,” she answers, smiling when Mrs Kingston makes a humming noise that sounds like  _ aww  _ and places a hand against her chest softly.

“You know, I knew my husband in my childhood as well,” she says, and nods, a far away look in her eyes that makes Devi think of Nalini and Kamala talking about India. She had previously thought that that look had to be reserved for Nalini, craving endlessly a life that she can never quite get back, but apparently, she had been wrong. Nostalgia is universal, and it seems that Mrs Kingston has enough of it to go around. “Henry always was a sweet talker, even when we were young.”

“Is Henry here?” Devi asks, “I’d love to meet him.”

Mrs Kingston chuckles softly, and sets her wineglass down. “No, he died about five years ago,” she says, and Devi’s smile drops.

(Ambulance lights and gasps and hospital gowns and  _ “I’m sorry, but your husband didn’t make it”  _ and bedtime  _ kathas  _ and ping pong and tennis games and harp music and U2 and pancakes for dinner and her mother screaming screaming screaming—)

“I-I’m so sorry,” Devi says, her throat feeling thick, “my dad died, a little while ago. When I was fifteen,” she adds, unsure of why she says it, unsure of why she feels that she should spill out her life's story, her grief, on the tabletop between her and this woman she has just met, but the look on Mrs Kingstons face makes her think that maybe, it is worth it. That it is okay to talk about him, like it is normal. Like he is a person, her father, not a tragedy and a heart attack. “So, I guess I know that… it’s still hard.”

Devi braces herself for the inevitable as Mrs Kingston opens her mouth to reply. Braces herself for the,  _ I’m so sorry, what happened to him, what can I do?  _ Braces herself for the look of too much interest in the details. Braces herself to cry. But, instead Mrs Kingston says, “what was his name?”

Devi blinks, and breaks out in a smile that could outshine the sun. “His name was Mohan,” she says, and smooths a hand underneath her eyes only to find that they are completely dry. “Technically, his name was Doctor Mohan Vishwakumar, he was a professor, but he would’ve been a tennis player if he could’ve.” 

Mrs Kingston chuckles. “Henry was a soldier, then an insurance actuary, then an artist,” she says, “and a whole lot of other things in the in betweens. His business card would’ve looked more like a grocery store receipt.” 

“Hey,” Ben says, reappearing with two champagne flutes filled with fizzy grape juice, “what did I miss?”

“Talks about dead people,” Devi says plainly, and watches Ben falter, almost like his mind is rebooting. Devi laughs at him, and takes one of the champagne flutes from his hand, sipping out of it. “I was telling her about my dad, and she was telling me about her husband.” 

“Ah,” Ben says, and sits down next to her, pulling his seat so he is sitting almost flush against her, “as is the best way to begin lifelong relationships.”

“I don’t know about lifelong at my age,” Mrs Kingston says, and Devi snorts, Ben's mouth falling open.

“Don’t say that, Marjorie,” he scolds, shaking his head dramatically, “Betty White is like, ninety-nine.” 

“Very comforting, Benjamin,” she says, and reaches across the table to pat his hand, almost like a grandmother. “Now, enough about me.” 

“I don’t think I will  _ ever  _ hear enough of you,” Ben says, and Devi kicks him softly under the table, trying to say  _ you’re overdoing it  _ without words.

“Well, I’ve heard enough of me.” She sips from her wineglass again, then sets it down with a sense of finality. “I want to hear about you two.” 

“Us two?” Devi echoes, looking up at Bens with lips parted.

“How long have you two been together?” she asks, leaning forward conspiratorially, the kind of mischievous smiles that only old women can have gracing her cheeks, and Devi bites back a choke of laughter.

“I— we aren’t,” Ben finally says, his knee bouncing nervously against her leg. Devi reaches out and rests her hand over it, not giving her mind the space to think about how much she is touching him and focusing instead on the upset looking on Mrs Kingston— Marjories— face. “She’s just my friend.” 

“Well, I never,” she says, huffing but still smiling, “never in all my days have I seen two friends look at each other like that or dress with their clothes matching like that.”

_ Look at each other like that.  _ Her- Her and Ben look at each other like… something? Like there are stars in his eyes and she is trying to sort them into constellations. Like she is trying to memorize him, trying to know him even in the dark, trying to take him everywhere she goes, even if he is only in her mind.

“The matching was an accident—”

“Good friends simply do not match formal wear,” Marjorie says, a tone of finality, and Devi knew she was going to become the center of attention today, but she did not think that it would be like this. “And good friends do not memorize each other's drink orders.”

Devi wants to interrupt and say that she knows Eleanor and Fabiola’s drink orders, but when she thinks about it, she does not. But she knows Bens, knows his glass has fizzy raspberry apple cider in it, knows that he drinks it with a maraschino cherry at home but never in public. She stays quiet and lets herself blush, squeezing Ben's knee underneath the table without really realizing. 

“I can promise,” Ben says, looking down at her, her face carefully even, “we’re only friends. I— there’s nothing between us.” 

He is telling the truth, but it makes her skin sting regardless, and by the time he has finished stuttering through an explanation of their entire lives, her chest has started to hurt all over and all she can think about is getting out of this room with these people that she does not know and going home to eat ice cream and call Eleanor and Fabiola.

“I— if you’ll excuse me,” Devi says, and stands up, hurrying away from the table and out the door, bumping into a tuxedo black waiter with a white towel thrown over his arm, feeling far too wrapped up in herself to apologize.

She leans against the fancy brick exterior of the country club and presses both hands to her chest, leaning over and taking a deep breath, looking out across the landscaping and the packing lot. For such a rich people building, the parking lot is minimal, green plants and multicoloured flowers taking up most of the space that she can see. She has an absurd urge to try to steal one of the hibiscus blooms, but stifles it. 

“Devi?” Ben's voice says, and she jerks her head up. He looks frazzled, halfway out of breath, and for the first time in her life, she wants to run towards him instead of away.

“Ugh, God, you always follow me, don’t you?” she asks, pulling her shoes off and sitting down on the concrete. The heat bleeds through the material of her dress, and it raises goosebumps along her legs and up her torso. 

“I’m sorry?” he says, coming out as a question, and pulls his suit jacket off, laying it on the ground and sitting on top of it. “I mean, you did make me promise not to leave you alone.”

“God, you’re such a dick,” she says, and puts her face in her hands, “hasn’t anyone ever told you that you’re a dick?”

“I think this girl I go to school with and have been competing against my entire life has, but only once or twice.” His joke is stupid, but it works, and she chuckles into her palms. “But, it usually goes over my head, because I know she likes me regardless.” 

“In your dreams,” Devi says, and lifts her head up out of her hands, “remind me to call you a dick more often.” 

“Why would I ever remind you of that?” he asks, and rolls his eyes when she shrugs. “Just make a reminder in your phone, or something. I’m not gonna help you schedule my own insults.” 

“You should,” she says, and leans her head against his shoulder. He reaches around her, slipping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer to him, as if the world around them is freezing and he is the only thing that can keep her warm, and it makes her skin tingle pleasantly. “It would make me like you a lot more.”

“Mmm,” he hums, pushing her hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear, “maybe I’ll remind you another day.” 

“You better.” 

Ben chuckles, then says, “Devi?”

“Yeah?”

“You look really- really beautiful,” he tells her, voice skipping awkwardly.

Devi’s stomach explodes in happiness, but she is too tired to process it, too tired to really reply. She is quiet for a moment, before mumbling, “Ben? I think I’m gonna fall asleep.” 

“Let me take you home,” he says, pulling his arm away from her shoulders and moving to stand up, but she digs her fingers into his button down, keeping him pressed into her side.

“You promised not to leave me,” she says, eyes closed, and he sighs so loud that she feels it reverberate down her arm. He smooths his hand up the arm holding him in place, and eases her hand open.

“I’ll take you back to my house, okay?” 

“M'kay,” she hums, drawing out the  _ m,  _ and stands up when he grabs her hands and pulls her forward, opening her eyes sleepily. 

“Are you okay? Stable?” he asks, not letting go of her hands.

“Yeah,” she says, and eases her hands out of his, smoothing them down her skirt and brushing off any dust. “Yeah, I am.”

_ As long as I am with you. _

* * *

_\+ i._

“Devi!” Rebecca says, pulling open her apartment door and tugging her inside and into a hug, “I’m so glad you came!” 

“Hey, D,” Cameron says, poking his head out of the kitchen and waving at her. He has grown a short beard since the last time Devi saw him, and she has the absurd urge to reach out and scratch him underneath his chin like a puppy. 

“Cameron,” Devi says, smiling at him and saluting with two fingers after Rebecca lets her go, “still dressing like a  _ Golden Girls _ two episode love interest, I see,” she adds, motioning towards his cable knit sweater vest. 

“I’ve found my niche, Devi, and I am embracing it,” he says, puts his earbuds back in his ears, and disappears into the kitchen.

“He’s about to start singing Beyoncé at a  _ very  _ high volume, so if we wanna keep our eardrums, it’s best that we leave now,” Rebecca says, grabbing her jacket and purse from a peg on the door just as Cameron starts on in on an off-key rendition of  _ Single Ladies.  _

“Wow, you sure are marrying him, huh?” Devi asks, following Rebecca to the elevator and waiting for it to arrive as Rebecca presses the button.

“Yeah, I sure am,” Rebecca says, and sighs happily, incredibly girly, “it’s damn good he proposed when he did, because I was this close to buying a ring and doing it myself.” 

Devi snorts, and steps onto the elevator after the doors open smoothly and pressing the button to the ground floor. “He would’ve said yes.” 

“Duh.”

“When did you know you wanted to marry him?” Devi asks, more out of curiosity than anything as the elevator rumbles down to the first floor. “Like, when did you realize?”

“I always knew I loved him,” Rebecca says plainly, following Devi out of the elevator and the building, then taking the lead towards the parking garage, “and I think I always knew I wanted to marry him, but I didn’t realize I wanted to marry him  _ now  _ until I caught him on the phone with my dad.” 

“Caught him?” Devi asks, waiting as Rebecca pulls her keys from her purse and unlocks the car, pulling her door open. 

“He’s been getting Japanese lessons from  _ papa  _ on the sly,” Rebecca says, putting the keys in the ignition and backing out of the parking spot, “because he wanted to propose to me in Japanese.”

“Oh my God,” Devi says, drawing out the letters and folding her hands over her chest, “I actually think I might be in love with Cameron. You may have to contend with some competition here, Becca.”

Rebecca snorts. “In your dreams, Vishwakumar.” 

* * *

“This would be cute as fuck,” Devi says, pulling a dress of the rack and holding it out over Rebecca’s frame when she turns around. “I don’t understand why you aren’t making your own wedding dress.”

“Because,” Rebecca says, grabbing the dress from Devi’s hand and walking up to the counter with it, “I am making my bridesmaid dresses, and wedding dresses are hard as fuck to make. I can do my own alterations, though, so there's that.”

“Would you make my wedding dress?” Devi asks, as the woman manning the dressing rooms unlocks a door for her.

“Okay, first of all, the fact that you think I’d be capable of sewing a  _ saree  _ is very kind, but, no,” Rebecca says, stepping into the dressing room and shutting the door with a  _ click.  _ “I would be both dead as fuck and feel morally wrong making one.”

“I meant, like, if I ever had a white wedding,” Devi says, leaning against the wall opposite Rebecca’s changing room.

“Oh, like a Priyanka Chopra slash Nick Jonas situation?”

“I hate Priyanka,” Devi says, huffing, “but yeah, I guess like Priyanka and Nick.”

“Sorry, but that is  _ literally  _ the only example I can think of,” Rebecca says, and Devi can imagine her shrugging, even as she changes. “Do you  _ think  _ you’re gonna have a white wedding and an Indian wedding.”

“Maybe. But especially if I marry a white dude.”

“Oh, like Ben?” Rebecca asks, and Devi chokes, attracting the ire of the woman who had unlocked the changing room for Rebecca. “I know you guys have been hanging out more— he posts on his Instagram story every time you’re together.”

“You’re following Ben?” Devi asks, more bewildered with that revelation than the knowledge that he posts about her on Instagram.

“Gotta keep tabs on the “white dudes” my friends hang out with,” Rebecca says, reaching over the top of the changing room door to surround  _ white dudes  _ in air quotes, “and stop trying to change the topic with questions about who I follow. We were talking about you and Ben.” 

“I… I was with him before I came over to your place, actually,” Devi says, putting her face in her hands. Usually, she would not feed this fire. She would dismiss it and push a new topic until Rebecca forgot about Devi and Ben altogether. Until her fantasies were ancient history. But, things have changed. Lines have blurred. And sometimes, she wants to be asked, wants to spill her feelings and her thoughts. 

She has let herself share her feelings about Mohan and Nalini and her insecurities with Kamala around, Kamala being everything she is not. She has talked about it, written it down, screamed about it to the ocean, but she does not talk about Ben. Does not talk about the relationship she has with him, about the coils of attraction in her stomach, about the feeling she has every time he grabs her hand or kisses her cheek or smiles at her like every hero in a childhood storybook. 

(She does not talk about Ben because she does not think she will ever have a chance with him. Ben is the sunrise and she is the moon that absorbs his light and reflects it. They have a history but they do not have a future, and that realization still hurts)

“What’d you guys do?” Rebecca asks, punctuated with the sound of an elastic band snapping and a soft yelp. 

“You want me to tell you?”

“Duh.”

“Oh,” Devi says, and picks at a hole in her jeans, “okay…”

* * *

_ “We need flour, Gross,” Devi says, digging through his drawers, trying to find measuring cups, “I can’t believe that you genuinely don’t know what you have in your pantry.”  _

_ “I mean technically, the pantry is a guest room, so there’s a lot to contend with,” Ben says, sticking his head out and frowning at her, “your pantry is what, a closet?” _

_ “A pantry is a pantry,” she says, “and you should know what’s in it.”  _

_ “I can always call Patty—” _

_ “No!” Devi says, turning towards him and brandishing a tablespoon like a sword. “This is about you being able to actually feed yourself and stay alive in your own house.” _

_ “Okay, barring the fact that I can already do that,” Ben says, holding his hands up in surrender, “I don’t see how making cookies will prove that. Or prove anything, really.”  _

_ “It will prove that you can cook, and I will also have cookies to eat,” Devi says, and pats his cheek. He turns his head, kissing her palm, and her heart speeds up in her chest. She snatches her hand back, and says, “now, find the flour.” _

_ “There may be a wait period on that,” he says, and disappears back in the pantry before he can even see her roll her eyes. _

* * *

“Wait, he actually kissed your palm?” Rebecca says, opening the changing room door and spinning around. “Like, lip to palm contact?”

The dress is pretty, but it is not her. Devi gives Rebecca a thumbs down, and she nods, slipping back into the changing room. “Yeah,” Devi finally says, once Rebecca is out of her line of sight and her embarrassment ebbs, “why would I lie about that?”

“I didn’t think you were lying, per se,” Rebecca says, opening the door so her face and the strap of the dress are in view, “I just kind of didn’t believe it. But no matter, continue.”

* * *

_ “No, it's one egg  _ and  _ one egg yolk,” Devi says, pointing at the recipe on his open laptop, “so two egg yolks total and one egg white.” _

_ “I still think it’s just one egg,” Ben says, stirring a bowl of sugar and butter and looking over her shoulder at the laptop, “but we can do it your way, David.”  _

_ “I literally says  _ “add eggs one at a time”  _ in the instructions, Ben,” Devi says, “eggs plural.” _

_ “Tent singular, Charles?” Ben says, quoting  _ Brooklyn Nine-Nine  _ and smiling like an idiot, “Charles, tent singular?”  _

_ “You’re the worst,” Devi says, laughing in spite of herself, “like, actually the worst. That's an eight point Scrabble word.” _

_ “You just know the point values of different words in Scrabble?” Ben asks, setting the bowl down and leaning against the counter to look at her. “What about quiet?” _

_ “Fourteen.” _

_ “Definition?” _

_ “Also fourteen.” _

_ “Surface?” _

_ “Twelve.” _

_ “Also?” _

_ “Four.” _

“Why  _ do you know this?” Ben asks, laughing and running a hand through his hair. “Like, do you just play Scrabble a lot, or is this information you just… know?” _

_ “Well, I mean, there are eight different point values— zero to ten— and each letter has a value, and once you know them all, you can just add it together for each,” she says, and shrugs, “Q and Z are worth ten, but A and E— well, all the vowels— are only worth one.” _

_ “So S and L are worth one,” Ben says, “because “also” is only worth four points.” _

_ “There you go,” Devi says, patting his chest and turning back to the laptop. “Okay, we need to add the eggs into the bowl with the sugar and the butter.” _

_ “Eggs plural,” Ben says, and follows her instructions, adding the eggs and a tablespoon and a half of vanilla extract. “Hey, while these are baking, do you want to play Scrabble? I mean, I know it’ll be hard for you with your limited vocabulary, but I won’t beat you that hard.” _

_ “Did we or did we not just spend five minutes detailing the fact that I am a Scrabble God?” _

_ “You know the  _ rules  _ for Scrabble and the word points,” Ben says, smirking at her and bumping her with his hip, “that doesn’t mean you actually know words.” _

_ “I won the fifth grade spelling bee, Gross,” Devi says, “Analogy. A-N-A-L-O-G-Y. Analogy. Eleven points in Scrabble. Winning word in the school wide spelling bee. The peak of your shame.” _

_ “I wouldn’t exactly say the  _ peak,”  _ Ben says, adding the dry ingredients into the bowl and stirring it, tilting his head down to look at her.  _

_ “What is the peak of your shame, then?” Devi asks, eating some chocolate chips out of the bag and looking up at him. _

_ “Mmm, letting you in my house today, probably,” he says, taking the chocolate chips that Devi offers, “or, like, ever.” _

_ “Rude,” Devi says, crossing her arms over her chest and sticking out her lower lip in a pout, “you know I’m your best friend.” _

_ Ben looks her up and down as he empties the bag of chocolate chips into the mixing bowl, and he smiles. “Yeah, I guess you are,” he says, and her stomach explodes into butterflies. _

* * *

Rebecca steps out of the dressing room, and spins around, holding the skirt up and dropping it a few times. Devi claps a hand over her mouth and fanning her face. 

“Rebecca, you’re so beautiful,” she says, looking her up and down, drinking in all the details of the dress. The top is picked out with satiny white flowers that fold into a skirt made of layers of warm, white tulle, and Devi’s heart flutters as she looks at Rebecca, who spins and flounces like a princess.

“I love this one,” Rebecca says, pushing her hair back and looking down at the hem of her dress, “I’d have to take it in and hem it a little, but I can totally do that.” 

“So you want this one?” Devi asks, standing up and feeling the material of the skirt in between her fingers. It is soft, and Rebecca is beaming when Devi looks back towards her face. “It’s so beautiful, and you look gorgeous.”

Rebecca gasps, and her jaw drops open. “It has pockets!” she shouts, sticking her hands in the pockets and lifting them up, the skirts brushing over her feet. 

“Buy. It.” She spins Rebecca around by the shoulders and pushes her gently towards the changing room. “It’s perfect for you, and it will make Cameron swoon.”

“Okay, okay,” she says, and pulls the door of the dressing room open. “Circling back to your story about the day with Ben—”

“Must we?”

“We must,” Rebecca says, rustling around as she changes, “so, he said you’re his best friend?”

“Yeah.”

“But how did he say it? Was it, like,  _ Luke, you are my best friend,”  _ she says, pitching her voice low like Darth Vader, “or was it more  _ The Notebook _ -esque?”

“It was more casual. Like-like a confession,” she admits, knotting her fingers together.

“You know what I’m gonna say,” Rebecca says.

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“I think Ben likes you, Devi,” Rebecca says, as if it is a normal assumption, as if that is the most logical conclusion. As if it is a possibility, as if there is a chance.

(The sun does not love the satellite that reflects its light)

“No way,” Devi says, shaking her head even though Rebecca cannot see her, “not a chance in Hell.”

“I was right when I said that Paxton liked you, and I was right when I thought Cameron liked me.”

“Two outta three ain’t bad,” Devi says, and Rebecca scoffs, “and you knew Paxton. You don’t know Ben.”

“I know men in general,” Rebecca says, completely confident, “and I would bet money on this.”

“I think you have a gambling gene that you may need to watch out for,” Devi says, earning a derisive snort from Rebecca and nothing else. “But, seriously, I… I don’t think he likes me.”

“Was today the first time he’s kissed you?” Rebecca asks, and Devi feels her bones blush.

“I… not exactly,” Devi says, scrubbing a hand over the blush on her cheeks. The dressing room attendant looks at her again, a frown etched into her face, and Devi resists the urge to stick her tongue out mockingly.

“What does that mean?” Rebecca asks, opening the door to the dressing room and stepping out, the dress she chose slung carefully over her arm. “Not exactly? How is it that I ask you a yes or no question and you manage to give me an answer that isn't yes  _ or  _ no?” 

“I don’t know.” She throws her arms up, and Rebecca rolls her eyes.

“Well, explain,” she says, looking at her watch, “I’ve got all day.”

“He kissed me on the cheek, a few months ago,” she explains, watching Rebecca’s head bob as she nods, “and I- I kissed him once. During sophomore year.”

“Before or after you dated my brother?” Rebecca asks, sounding hurt— protective, almost— for the first time since their conversation had started. “Or—”

“It was before,” Devi says, rushed, before Rebecca can fix a sentence that Devi already knows the destination of. “I— it was a mistake, kissing him, because right after, I went out with Paxton and he stopped speaking to me for-for a long time, so.”

“Have you ever considered that he stopped speaking to you because he was jealous?” Rebecca asks, and motions for Devi to follow her to the counter. “Because, it's completely possible that he was jealous. Or hurt, because he thought he had a chance with you. Then you dated Paxton.” 

“I can’t tell if you’re criticizing my decision to date your brother or not,” Devi says, bewildered, and shoves her hands in her pockets, “because if you are, that makes you a traitor to the Hall-Yoshida name.”

“First of all, you don’t know the Hall-Yoshida bylaws,” Rebecca tells her, letting the cashier scan the price tag on the dress. “Second of all, I am absolutely criticizing that decision, because Paxton is a douche and you two would not have worked long term, as much as I would have enjoyed official sister Devi.” 

“In another life, I think you would be the long island medium,” Devi says, and watches Rebecca wrinkle her nose up.

“Ew, no,’ she says, and pays in silence.

They are halfway to the door when Rebecca turns around and smirks, looking her up and down. “Do you wanna look for prom dresses?” she asks, and the mentions of prom makes shivers zip up and down Devi’s spine.

“I don’t know—”

“Please, Devi?” Rebecca asks, and Devi groans. Rebecca rarely asks her for things, priding herself too much of her self sufficiency and her lack of reliance on anyone or anything to really ask, or to beg. 

And that is the only reason that Devi says, “okay.”

* * *

_ He plays the word  _ love  _ when he asks her, “do you ever think about the future?” _

_ It is enough to make her pause, her movement with an  _ S  _ tile faltering, and the board shakes softly. “I… dont know,” she answers, settling her tile down and easing within the borders of the square, “be more specific.” _

_ “About who you want to keep in your life, y’know, when you go to college,” he explains, shrugging with a casualness that seems practiced. The question itself— the entire topic— seems practice and measured out, like he has been thinking about this for a long time, like he has been meaning to ask her for awhile. Suddenly, the room feels cold, and she grabs a blanket from the couch behind her and wraps it around her shoulders like protection. _

_ “I-I don’t know,” she answers, trailing her fingers across the blanket, raising patterns, “I’m gonna keep my family, and Eleanor and Fabiola, obviously—” _

_ “Me?” he asks, with a whispered vulnerability that makes her head cloud with fog. _

_ “What do you want me to say?” she breathes, like it is an acceptable answer, like the thought of leaving him behind makes her feel like she is being ripped in half. She knows it is a possibility, knows that people and things and memories get swept away in the current of life, and that college is a waterfall with rocks at the bottom, and she does not even know where he is going. _

_ “I-I want you to tell me the truth.” _

_ “And I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep,” she says, half choking on the words and then on the tears that threaten her eyes when she takes in the look on Ben's face. _

_ “I dont know what that means, Devi.” _

_ “I don’t know what you want me to say,” she says, pushing at the tiles on the board with one finger. They have abandoned the game completely, so it does not really matter, and she needs something to do with her hands. “I don’t know what you want from me.” _

_ “I think I want you to leave,” he says, his voice even, and that hurts worse than if he had yelled. If he had yelled, she could be angry, could scatter the pieces of their shattered game of Scrabble, could slam the door on the way out. _

_ But instead, he is defeated, and slamming the door will only make it worse. _

* * *

The dress looks beautiful on her.

It is red, it is always red, because if she is given the option, she will choose red, every time, and the fabric spills over her hips and dips low in her chest and pools at the floor over her feet, and she wants to wear it to prom.

And she wants to go with Ben.

“I think I really hurt him, Rebecca,” she says, staring at her own reflection in the mirror. Her hair is spilling over her shoulders, brushing the bare skin at her back where the dress cuts low.

“You can fix it,” she says, toying with the hem and folding it over, as if she has already decided that this is the dress, and that she is going to alter it, “you can always fix it.”

(Would the sun forgive the moon for failing to rise?)

“I don’t know.”

“You have to try,” she says, and straightens up. “We’ll buy the dress, and then you’ll try.”

* * *

She knocks five times before Ben answers.

“Devi, I don’t—”

“I’m sorry,” she says, pushing a hand towards the door to keep him from closing it, “I’m so, so sorry. I hurt you, and I’m sorry, and I-I want to keep you in my life. I want to keep you in my life forever and I want to make cookies with you again and I want to beat you in Scrabble and spelling bees and I want you in my life, I do, I want you forever.”

He is quiet, looking at her with his lips parted, before he opens the door carefully. “Do you want to come in?” he asks, stepping aside.

“I want to go to prom with you,” she says, letting out a breath she has been holding for years, “I  _ want you  _ forever.”

He smiles— a Malibu cliffs smile— and tilts his body into hers, hands banding around her waist as her kisses her, heat and lightning and banter and spelling bee words, and he parts her lips with his own and he tastes like chocolate and there is something about this moment that feels like puzzle pieces slotting into place.

“I should’ve told you sooner,” she says, breaking away from him to breathe, “I should’ve been more clear, and-and I should’ve told you at the yogurt shop, should’ve told you as soon as I realized but I was scared.”

“It’s okay,” he whispers, kissing her again, lingering, “it’s okay, I forgive you, I-I should’ve said something, too.”

“You like me?” she asks, and he laughs, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Don’t laugh at me,” she says, pouting, and Ben kisses her lower lip.

“I thought it was obvious.”

“Not-not to me,” she says, voice skipping when he kisses her cheek, dragging his lips up to her ear.

“Devi.”

“Yeah?” she answers, letting him walk her backwards until she is pressed against a wall. His lips ghost against her ear, and she groans, pressing the pads of her fingers into his shoulder blades. 

“Go to prom with me,” he says, kissing a spot just below her ear that makes a wave of goosebumps ripple across her body.

“Yes.”

He drags his teeth down the column of her throat, nipping at her skin in a way that makes firework sparks shoot to life in her stomach, and whispers, “go to prom with me.”

“I-I will.”

His hands slip up her body and into her hair, his thumbs framing her ears and he tilts her face up to press his forehead against hers. “Go to prom with me, Devi,” he says, and does not give her time to reply before he kisses her.

(The sun can love the moon, after all)

* * *

_ +i. _

“Y’know, I’m glad you didn’t want to go somewhere super fancy and uncomfortable,” Devi says, ducking under his arm as he holds the door open for her, “but I do think that McDonalds is a little bit underwhelming.”

“I asked Eleanor for suggestions, and she said McDonalds,” Ben says, holding his hands up defensively, “technically, she said the location of our first date, and that was McDonalds.” 

“We were still friends when we went on that “date,”” Devi says, using air quotes around the word  _ date.  _

Ben shrugs, and tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. She leans into his touch, however unconsciously, but he smiles regardless. “Technicalities,” he says, and kisses her temple. “I’ll order, if you can get a table?”

“Always,” she agrees, then chuckles, “y’know, I bet Paxton is taking Eleanor to, like, the cheesecake factory. Or some French restaurant.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ben asks, putting his hands on his hips, sass incarnate. “Then why did Eleanor say she would see us here about fifteen minutes ago.” 

Devi lights up, a smile stretching over her face. “Eleanors coming?” she asks, rocking forward on the balls of her feet.

“And Fabiola,” he says, pointing back towards the sitting area, “so, you should probably find a big table, David.”

“I love you,” she says, and takes in the part of his lips, the shell shocked look on his face, before she turns around hurriedly and finds a table big enough for the six of them.

She sits down heavily and pulls her phone from the pocket of her dress.

_ devi: i just told ben i love him _

_ devi: this is a 911 _

_ fabiola: Is it a 911 because you’re afraid of emotional vulnerability or is it a 911 for a different reason _

_ devi: its a 911 bc he didnt say it back _

_ fabiola: o h _

_ eleanor: i'll kill him. _

_ fabiola: I’ll kill him too _

_ fabiola: And im a scientist so i'll get away with it _

_ devi: this is not constructive _

_ devi: or helpful _

_ devi: and im not gonna b mad if he doesnt love me _

_ devi: bc that's some weird possessive shit and i aint abt that _

_ eleanor: aww that's very healthy, i love it _

_ eleanor: i mean, i hate ben _

_ eleanor: but i love that _

_ devi: god just shut the hell up and get here _

_ eleanor: pax is pulling into the parking lot as we speak _

_ devi: thank god and jesus and fuck _

Eleanor breezes through the door a moment later in a dress that looks like an art piece, and Devi’s heart releases. “Over here, El,” she says, standing up and waving, the hem of her dress catching underneath her heel.

“Do you want me to kill Ben or just maim him a little?” Eleanor asks, before pulling Devi into a hug that crushes her bones.

“I dont think it’s possible to maim someone just a little,” Devi says, pulling away from the hug to look Eleanor up and down. The dress is a sheer green with flowers embroidered all over it in a cascading waterfall of colour, and it is so her that it makes Devi smile. “You look really beautiful.”

“As do you, despite your date being undeserving of it.”

“Watch it,” Devi says, motioning for her to sit down. Paxton appears a moment later, wearing a tie that matches Eleanor dress, and the beaming smile that Eleanor aims his way makes Devi bump her shoulder against Eleanors, making exaggerated kissing noises. 

“Hey, Little D,” Paxton says, waving with one hand, “I’m gonna go order, need anything?”

“Bens on it,” she says, waving back, “but thanks for the offer, Big P.”

He nods and turns on his heel, walking up to the cashier and diving animatedly into a conversation, rocking back and forth on his heels and pointing to the menu. After he pays, he leaves a twenty dollar bill in the tip jar. He has always been that way, unendingly generous and giving, leaving spare change on store shelves and sidewalk, paying for other people's morning coffees offering to walk dogs. 

“I’m glad I met him,” Eleanor says, but her smile drops when Ben shows up, holding a tray with his and Devi's food and a stack of napkins.

“Hey, Eleanor,” he says, smiling at her, “you look really pretty, the dress suits you well.”

“Hello, Benjamin, I am aware,” she says, clipped. Ben's eyebrows furrow, and Devi puts her face in her hands, kicking Eleanor underneath the table. She squeaks, but otherwise does not fold, and Devi groans.

“Devi, here's your food,” he says, passing her her hamburger and fries container before sliding into the booth next to her. He leans into her ear, and despite everything, it still gives her shivers. “Why is Eleanor glaring at me like Bernie Sanders at the inauguration?” he whispers, voice hushed, and Devi shrugs.

“Not sure,” she says, taking a sip from her lemonade and shrugging, “maybe she knows about how you were rude to the moon.”

“That was literal months ago.”

“The moon never forgets, and neither do we.”

Ben makes a face, raising his eyebrows for a moment and stealing a few of her fries. “Oh,” he says, pulling a napkin from the stack and passing it to her, “here’s a napkin, especially for you.”

She screws her face up, looking at him strangely, but takes the napkin anyway. “What does that even mean?” she asks, but all he does is gesture his head towards the napkin.

She looks down at it, and—  _ oh. _

_ I love you too _

_ -Ben _

Surrounded in hearts and smiley faces and other small, cartoonish doodles that she cannot make out. She looks up at him, at the grin on his face, and she cups his face in her hands and kisses him. It is all salt and ketchup and awkward lips-sliding, but this is them, in the present, and he  _ loves  _ her.

“Mmm,” she hums, breaking away from the kiss after she feels Eleanor bump her calf with her foot. She blushes when she looks back at the table to see Paxtons raised eyebrows, and he whistles low. She turns away from them all, and back to Ben, pushing his hamburger across his tray to him. “Eat your dinner.” 

“Yeah, cause he just burned a lot of calories making out with you, right here in front of God and us and everybody,” Eleanor says, dipping a fry in mayonnaise and taking a bite out of it, “making McDonalds a brothel.”

Devi just rolls her eyes, mind too foggy to come up with a better response. 

She takes a picture of the napkin and sends it to the group chat.

_ devi: crisis averted :) _

* * *

Prom, as it turns out, is mostly just sitting around and talking to her friends. Fabiola is more interested in the sound system setups— namely their choice of location for speakers— than the actual dancefloor, and more than once she uses the request a song option to ask the DJ about his technical background (“engineers are  _ everywhere,  _ Devi!”). Eleanor disappears halfway through the dance, and so does Paxton, and when they come back, his hair is mussed and her dress unbuttoned in three places at the back. Eve slips Ben a twenty dollar bill, and Devi pretends not to notice.

It is not Ben's scene. The country club, with its shrimp and name brand suits and tittering old ladies is where he truly belongs. Not a watered down club scene with sweaty teenagers and neon lights and punch that tastes like grocery store samples. He is not quite grumpy, but he is not ecstatic either. Devi does not mind, though, not when it means they get to sit together and talk, enjoy each other's company at a table in a corner with a thin white table cloth and fold out chairs.

“Hey,” she says finally, the dance dwindling down and the people starting to disperse. The DJ has been playing a string of old slow songs, and Devi can feel her bones start to melt away into the pleasant tiredness of a good time. “You wanna come dance again? Before they shut the whole thing down?”

He nods, and pulls her to her feet, kicking her shoes underneath the table and leading her to the dancefloor. He pulls her into him, and she rests her head against his chest, his heartbeat reverberating in her mind, soothing her. “Thank you for loving me,” he says, kissing the top of her head, “I know I don’t make it easy.”

“You’re one of the easiest people to love,” she admits, and finds, to her great surprise, that she does not regret it. “At least, that I’ve met.”

“You’re easy to love, too,” he says, his voice rumbling through her body, “especially considering that I’ve loved you for forever.”

“Mmm, liar,” she says, tracing a circle on his back, over his suit jacket.

“I’ve loved you for forever, just in different ways,” he tells her, and without even without his explanation, she knows exactly what he means. “I love to compete with you, to bicker, banter, I loved living with you and now I- I just love you. You and everything you come with.”

It is so sweet that it shocks her to her core, and all she can manage is, “ditto, bro.” 

He laughs, and it makes her shake. “I know you mean it because you said it like that,” he says, and she smiles into his chest. “Hey, Devi?”

“Yeah?” she asks, tilting her head back to look at him. He is looking at her like she is the full moon, like he is trying to make out all her details, and it makes her heart tumble in little somersaults along the length of her chest.

“You never did tell me what causes moonquakes,” he tells her, smirking like an idiot, and despite the fact that he is bringing this up now, she smiles. Smiles because this is Ben, Ben who she loves, Ben who is the only person in all the world who would ask about moonquakes at prom.

“I’ll tell you, but you have to take me home,” she says, and kisses his chest, directly over one of his buttons, “to your place.”

He smiles, and kisses her hard, crushing her against him and wrinkling the fabric of her dress but she cannot make herself care when he kisses her like that. When he breaks away, his lips are parted and a little swollen, and she has to reach up and swipe her lipstick off his bottom lip.

“That,” he says, mischief and kindness and so much love, “I can do.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you SO much for reading! if you liked it, leave a kudos, and if you really liked it, leave a comment because they make my cat respect me. thanks!


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